The Presentation of the Lord
February 2, 2014
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homily (mp3 file)
The feast we celebrate today has been called by enough different names over the
centuries to qualify it for an identity crisis! Years ago it was known on
Church calendars as the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary,
although people commonly called it Candlemas Day. In more recent years,
the Church officially named it the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord. And
so it is. But after a little research, I discovered yet one more name for
this feast, a name that goes all the way back to sixth-century Constantinople
where it was known as “The Encounter.”
The Encounter. I like that. It’s a word
capable of embracing all the different facets of this feast, all the layers of
the lovely story that Luke, alone among the Evangelists, gives to us in his
gospel -- today’s gospel.
The Encounter. The meeting. In this
case, a meeting with the holy, a meeting with the All Holy God. Today’s
first reading from the Prophet Malachi sets the tone. Malachi’s prophecy
comes from a time in Jewish history when the worship of God in the temple at
Jerusalem had grown very cold –- the victim of sterile ritualism and lukewarm
faith. In the midst of that dismal religious landscape came the prophet
Malachi who stirred people’s consciences and got them to look toward a time when
the light of God’s glory would blaze forth in the temple “like a refiner’s
fire,” and people’s half-hearted faith would come alive, and they would again
encounter the living God.
The Encounter. Luke’s gospel tells how Mary
and Joseph, full of gratitude and eager to fulfill the demands of the Law,
brought their newborn child to the temple to present him to the Lord. It
must have been a happy moment for Mary and Joseph -- not unlike the moment when
proud parents bring their babies to the church for baptism. Mary and
Joseph had been to the temple before, of course. They had encountered God
in that holy place which, more than any other, anchored the Divine Presence for
the Jewish people, making it tangible and real. But this was a new moment.
As the two grateful young parents carried their little child into the temple a
remarkable reversal occurred: a holy place gave way to a Holy Person: the place
of encounter, the temple, gave way to the Person encountered, the Child.
The temple made by human hands gave way to the living temple -- to the Christ,
the Light.
The Encounter. Soon, out of the dark shadows
of the temple making their way toward the Light, came two people, Simeon and
Anna, full of years and full of hope. They had long waited for this
moment, and their waiting was not just their own – their waiting was the waiting
of generations of people down through long ages, a waiting that had begun back
in the Garden when all had seemed lost; a waiting that had gained intensity when
Abraham answered God’s call and left his homeland; a waiting that gained even
greater intensity when Moses heard God’s voice speaking to him from the burning
bush, calling him to lead his people from slavery to freedom.
All that waiting, that interminable waiting, until
this moment when the old man Simeon came on the scene, took the Child in his
arms, and saw in him the salvation that God had promised so long ago. The
waiting was over at last. It came to an end in this tiny child in whom
Simeon saw the fulfillment of God’s Promise, the realization of the people’s
hopes: “The light of revelation to the gentiles,” as Simeon called him, “the
glory of God’s people, Israel.” And Anna, the old woman, her long wait was
over, too. In her encounter with the little Child, she must have felt young
again!
The Encounter. This lovely feast is our
encounter, too, my friends, our encounter with the Child, the Christ. We met
him forty days ago on Christmas, of course, when we marveled that God could be
so very small, and poor, and could love us so much. And today we meet him
as the Light – not just the light of our lives but the light for all peoples.
That’s why we began this celebration by spreading the light through the
Cathedral and singing of Christ who is our light. And I know, we have a little
competition today as we do this. Maybe a lot of competition. The big
encounter on a football field in East Rutherford could eclipse this Encounter.
But there’s room for both. There is. And good for you for knowing
that!
And now, in just a few minutes we will do what we do
at every Mass: take bread and break it, bless wine and drink it in memory of
Jesus, and in doing so, we will encounter the profound mystery of his love. And
then we will go forth from this place of encounter, go forth to do what Jesus
did: to bring blessing to a pretty self-absorbed and broken world: compassion to
the poor, hope to the downhearted, freedom to those held bound, hope to the
hurting. There is so much need, isn’t there! And there are so many who
need to encounter the Christ as Simeon and Anna did, and to be forever changed
by him as they were.
The Encounter. My friends, this feast is The
Encounter and this is the place of encounter. May our communion with
Christ and with one another in this Eucharist fill us with love and send us
forth to light the world with fire and to warm it with love!
Father Michael G. Ryan
